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Subject: Re: A personal thought regarding the opening books

Author: Dann Corbit

Date: 12:18:43 01/28/03

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On January 28, 2003 at 08:05:57, Omid David Tabibi wrote:

>As someone mentioned after the game, it is hard to imagine Junior losing in just
>27 moves, had it not used the opening book. Today, the top programs already play
>in a super-Grandmaster level (well, that doesn't include Kasparov of course), so
>why should they blindly play variations played by players weaker than them?
>
>Of course, turning the opening books off totally is not a viable option, as the
>programs still don't have the needed strategic vision to find their way early in
>the opening phase. But maybe a stricter limit (depending on type of opening,
>games played, statistics, etc) should be imposed for choosing moves right out of
>the opening book.

The problem without book is worse than the problem with book.  Steer a program
into the Evans Gambit without a tuned book and a GM will tear it to shreds (for
instance).

Opening positions are quiet positions where it will take a while for action to
develop.  These are among the positions where computers perform the worst.

Here is a fault which is easily corrected and I am astonished that it has not
been performed.

A book is a dense object with many, many lines of action.  However, compared to
the internal nodes, the exit points from the book are a very small fraction of
the book size.  Every commercial book should analyze every single exit position
on a fast machine for ten minutes.  Then, there will be no such thing as falling
out of the book and into a bad surprise.

If any bad positions are found, the engine should backtrack until the position
is no longer bad.

In other words, we need to check the perimeter of the book.  There can still be
internal problems where strategic or tactical moves are missed.  But most of the
problems are not like that.



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